Last November, I wrote that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency ran the risk of following in the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government footsteps. That program evaluated all sorts of ways to make government work better, but ended up doing almost nothing but laying off employees. The layoffs lasted only a few years, after which Congress restored the number of employees and agency budgets.
Gallatin National Forest; Forest Service photo.
Instead of simply cutting employees, I wrote, Musk should focus on creating new incentives for agencies to operate more efficiently and more effectively. “Such new incentives would focus agencies on the people they are supposed to serve rather than on simply increasing their budgets,” I added. “More important, if properly designed these would be lasting changes, not ones that would disappear as soon as the next administration takes office.” Continue reading
